‘Pretty Much Everyone Threw Up’ On A Flight Affected By The Newest Bomb Cyclone

Part of the reason air travel is so absurdly safe (emphasis, sometimes, on absurd) is that pilots document everything. Every time they hit turbulence, they file a detailed report explaining what happened, possible effects to crew and aircraft, and so on and so forth. Usually these reports are incomprehensible because they’re written using government code and scientific abbreviations. Not this report, though.

An unidentified flight headed to Washington, D.C. this morning right through a massive wind tunnel created by the bomb cyclone currently flooding a fair chunk of the Northeast. In D.C., the storm’s creating winds not seen since 2012’s Hurricane Sandy nailed the East Coast. Needless to say, they hit turbulence. The pilot of the flight chose to express this in blunter terms than usual:

Even the pilots were about ready to blow their groceries. To give you an idea of how bad this is, the jet in question is a Bombardier CRJ series, a common small aircraft used for regional travel. It seats about fifty people, and has a small flight crew. So, the vast majority of fifty people barfed, inside a pressurized environment where the air recirculates, with no way to get away from the smell or even get up from their seats until the plane touched the ground. So the next time you feel a little queasy on an airplane, just remember this story and take solace in the fact that it could be so much worse.

(via NOAA)